Book of Gospel
by lillelouis
Summary: In which Castiel drops by in need of a favor. Basically something I've been wondering for a while: How would Sam and Dean look and act at their scariest? This is attempt number 1.
1. The Mission

Full Summary: AU version of the events that follow the season 5 finale (Lucifer goes to hell with Sam). Sam is returned after being through hell, though not for 1 ½ years. This is not a story that's meant to fit in the canon arc, but rather something I've been wondering for a while. How would Sam and Dean look and act at their scariest? This is attempt number 1.

* * *

Book of Gospel

Chapter 1: The Mission

When Dean saw his brother for the first time after averting the apocalypse, he thought he was hallucinating. When he first reached out, he half expected his hands to glide right through, but Sam was real. He was there. The relief was so enormous it nearly split him in two.

Human and whole. Castiel assured it with a gentle smile on his face, as well as the fact that Adam was safely back in Heaven. Dean had asked about defying God, to which Castiel had shrugged and vanished. That was almost two weeks ago. Not much had happened since. Dean had left Lisa after Sam returned. He really hadn't intended to stay anyway, but Sam didn't need to know that.

That particular moment found them in the company of the angel once again. Castiel looked as close to upset as he could. Dean was worried, but knew his brother had to be even more so. Sam was having nightmares. Dreams about his round trip to Hell. Dean knew what one day in Hell felt like. It felt like weeks. Weeks of torture at the hands of Lucifer. And he imagined somehow that time slowed the further down you went. He imagined his brother had thought he'd be stuck forever.

"You realize what you're asking, right?" Dean wasn't so sure anymore. In fact he was pretty sure the angel was about as crazy as a celestial being could be and that was including an impressive list of sociopaths. Didn't stop them from being friends though.

Castiel nodded with a sliver of worry showing. Which probably meant that the angel was a great deal more worried than a human could ever be. "I'm asking you to travel forward in time and space to an unknown world where you may die or suffer severe injuries." he stonewalled, which oddly enough felt like home to Dean.

"No. You're asking us to risk our newly acquired – and by the way, very much appreciated – asses on a fool's errand."

"You're welcome," Castiel glanced away in something that might've been indignation and attempted humor. "for saving your lives, by the way."

"_So_ not the point-"

"Well alright, Cass. Why didja say this was so important?" Sam butted in with his soothing gestures, which also brought warm and fluffy feelings back in Dean's heart. He had a brother to bicker with again.

"I received a visit from myself."

"How _Paulo Coelho_ of you-" Dean mocked.

"What? You know Paulo Coelho?" Sam shook his head with a grin. "Dean, shut up. _Yourself_?" He asked the angel.

"Myself, approximately three hundred and fifty three years into the future. I asked myself to relay a message to you." Castiel responded without flinching over the absurdity of it all.

Dean rubbed his face. "You're killin' me, Cass."

"The message was very simple." Castiel now took a moment to stare ominously at them both.

"What? Is the world ending again or something, 'cause I think we already did our tour on the crazy train."

"No. The world will not end. I asked myself to say this to you: Retrieve the Book or suffer Lucifer's wrath for all eternity."

Both brothers stared at the angel. It was again Dean who spoke first. "So the world _is_ ending?"

"No."

"Sounds a lot like it is,"

"Dean, this isn't helping."

"Bite me, Sam." _Oh God that feels good!_ "You're even more insane than I pegged you for if you think we're going to - not only travel forth in time and space, but do it to defeat Lucifer. _Again_." Dean stared at the angel _hard_.

"I am not insane."

Dean threw up his hands and turned away while Sam managed to only sigh and amp up his poppy dog expression.

"You want us to go forward in time," Sam asked. Castiel nodded. "To save the world?" Again he nodded. "From Lucifer? _Again_."

"Yes."

Dean made a profane exclamation and turned to face the angel. "Why can't someone else do it?" Dean looked pleadingly at the angel and then Sam. "Ya know, a reaper once told me once that when we die it's time to let go? I'm pretty sure that applies to this situation seeing as we wouldn't normally be alive two hundred years in the future-"

"Three hundred and fifty three-"

"You're _killing_ me here, Cass" Dean growled out between gnashed jaws.

"What kind of book is it?" Sam asked.

"A Supernatural novel entitled Swan Song." Castiel replied, looking freakishly at ease with the whole situation. "The last book of the Winchester Gospels."

"Swan Song?" Dean mocked.

Castiel clarified, thinking of course that Dean was confused: "It explains in great detail the release of Lucifer."

"And why does it do that?" Dean arched a brow and frowned simultaneously.

"I do not know why Chuck put that information in there."

"Where is that little bastard by the way?"

"I don't know." Castiel admitted with a glance away.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I've searched the globe looking for him, but there is no trace."

"How can a guy just vanish off the face of the earth?" Dean bellowed.

Sam sighed exasperatedly at his brother before readdressing the angel. "Ok. So you want us to get the book and do _what_ with it?"

"Return it to people in the future who can be trusted."

"And who are they?"

"I do not know."

Again Dean spewed another colorful profanity into the ether.

"But my future self _will_. Find him and I will help you." This he adressed directly to Dean.

"You mean 'he' will." Dean corrected and finally coaxed a frown out of his friend.

"Why not just destroy the book? And why us?" Sam asked.

"Because it also tells of how you defeated Lucifer."

"And _why_ us?" Dean repeated.

"Because I know you won't fail." The angel looked a moment between the two. "Also you and Sam are the only ones who know all the details." Both brothers sighed again. "It wouldn't be wise to disclose too much information to the people of the future."

The heaviness of his request was beginning to weigh down Dean's mood. "And here I'd hoped for the night off." He looked despondently at Sam.

Castiel interrupted and put an awkward hand on Dean's shoulder. "I will never let you die before your time." He looked at Sam after Dean. "Neither of you." Then vanished.

The brothers shared a look. It was too much for Castiel to ask for. Dean knew it and Sam knew it. And if Castiel's tenaciously exorcized, yet failed, stoicism was anything to go by, even the angel knew it. But Dean also knew enough not to say no. He knew his brother wouldn't want him to and he knew with every grain that his friend hated asking. So with a sigh he called the Fallen back in the room. Castiel stared at them both inn silence as he waited for an answer, never revealing that he'd never left their presence, only become invisible, after his pretense of leaving.

"Do we need to pack?" Dean asked with a gesture around the room.

"You'll receive everything you need." Castiel said, his surprise at their compliance never showing, before placing two fingers on each of their foreheads and pushing them off three hundred years into the future.

* * *

**353 years later…**

Dean opened his eyes and looked around. Shook of the pins-and-needles feeling and turned. "Great. Another one of these trips." Houses looked as if they'd been blown apart. Rubble was littered everywhere. No cars, though. Maybe future people didn't drive cars? It snuck up on him how at ease he felt.

"Dean. Over here?" Sam called and crouched in front of something small. It looked like a flyer.

Dean frowned. _Why were there flyers, if there were no cars to put 'em on?_

"It looks like an ad for something."

"Like what?"

"A decree." Sam said in awe.

"A what-now?" He arched a brow and squatted.

"It's a decree stating that 'all people of psychic origin will be arrested'." As Sam read his voice dropped towards a whisper.

Dean glanced at him and wondered what kind of feelings, seeing something like that, brought up in him. "Looks old." Sure the kid had his freak on for a while there, but without powers was Sam even still a psychic? Dean decided that, no he wasn't: He was the dorky younger brother, fresh out of the Cage and only slightly crumpled for it.

"Yeah." he agreed absently. The paper was wilted and stiff. Came apart in his hands.

Dean straightened and looked around. It was windy. Blue skies. All in all a nice day. Had it not been for the vaguely familiar scent in the air and the fact that he was once again stuck in the future. "I hate the future." He pouted as his brother came to a stand beside him.

"We need to find that book and get back home."

"Oh shit!" Dean suddenly erupted.

Sam turned in a rush and looked around in panic. "What?"

Dean's shocked expression fell to one of disappointment. "I left a burger at the motel."

Sam frowned before huffing and waving an arm in dismissal.

"What? It's gonna be cold when we get back." Dean spread his arms and followed as his brother started walking in a random direction. "And I'm starving."

"Why am I not surprised?" Sam muttered with a smile on his face.

Dean grinned at his back. "Trust me, dude. If I know my time-travels we won't get another meal until we're back in New Haven."

"We weren't _in_ New Haven, Dean."

"Really?" He sounded genially surprised.

Sam huffed lightly. "Yeah."

"Then where were we?"

"In New London- Look, do you know where we're going 'cause I sure as hell don't?"

"Well hang on a second, Colombo and let me check my map-"

"That's so not funny."

"Dude, you think I don't know? This is about as fudging far from funny as it gets, but right now I'm just glad no one's trying to shoot me or _eat_ me."

"Dean?"

"No, Sam, I'm actually _entitled_ to act this way. This is the _second_ time I've been buggered by an angel and it ain't gettin' any funnier!" He shouted into the air in the hopes someone upstairs would hear.

"No. Dean?" Sam gestured to something behind Dean, who turned in a whirl and saw a young, wide-eyed woman.

"Stop saying my name like that."

"Whatta ya think she is?"

"Human?"

"Really?"

"No idea." She was dressed in black, baggy pants that might've been fatigues in another life.

"We could ask her?" Sam shrugged without removing his eyes from her.

"Yeah, brilliant idea, Sasquatch. And why don't you just hand her a really big stick at the same time so she can beat you with it?" Dean glared at him.

"You got any better ideas?"

He pursed his lips before he realized he actually didn't. At about the same moment Sam noticed that too and took charge of the situation.

"Uhm…hello?"

The girl flinched and ran for it. Without really thinking Sam jumped after her, closely followed by Dean. She turned into an alley without breaking her pace. Sam was the first to round the corner and see what they'd just been led into. Four guys with assault rifles, pointed at them, were waiting. And the second Dean rounded the corner as well, two shots rang out.

* * *

AN: Yes I know I'm corny and trite, but I really DO love cliffhangers.


	2. New World in My View

Chapter 2: New World in My View

The two warning shots rang out and pinged off a nearby dumpster. Made both brothers jump. "What are you?" A disembodied, male voice demanded.

Dean stuttered with his hands over his head and tried to get his brain operating again.

"I said: What _are_ you?"

"Whatta ya mean '_what'_?" he asked with his brother's clipped breaths next to him. Unnoticed by Sam he'd moved an inch to the left and was blocking his right side from the shooters.

"Psychics or hunters?" shouted a woman.

Dean and Sam shared a look. A discussion was carried out silently and in seconds. Dean asking why psychics and hunters didn't get along. Sam asking how the hell he should know. Dean asking what he was supposed to answer. Sam thinking that Dean could say 'both' because it was kinda the truth. Dean telling him that was a stupid ass idea, to which Sam reiterates with a quick huff.

"Whichever won't get us killed?" he tried. Another shot rang out and ricocheted off the wall with a little _phiewn_. Dean and Sam unconsciously shuffled a little closer to each other. Just as they saw a shooter taking aim, Sam opened his mouth.

"Psychics! We're psychics!" He pleaded. With a '_dude, what the hell_' look from Dean, he shrugged and moved forward.

"Prove it!" the woman shouted again.

Sam swallowed nervously. "Uhh, I ca- I can't."

Dean could feel cold sweat breaking out on his temples either from panic or indegestion. He was already starting to look for a way out of the situation or a toilet. Either would do.

"What's your power?"

"I can- I can see the future." Sam called back. "It just kinda happens sometimes."

Dean thought he heard someone mumbling _great, another prophet_ before the woman spoke again. "And your partner?"

"He's… uhh." Dean and he shared a glance where Dean shrugged urgently.

"He can read minds."

"_What!_" Dean hissed in a high pitched voice. Sam shrugged apologetically.

"What am I thinking right now?" The woman called.

Dean swallowed and moved in front of Sam. "Uhh… It doesn't work from afar." he slowly defended.

"Alright. Weapons down!" the male voice from before called.

Dean released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and lowered his arms. Slowly a few of the people moved closer. Four people. Three men and a woman. The one who'd done the talking. A cute one too. Black hair, plump lips and perfect, round-

"So tell me; what am I thinking now?" the guy from before asked.

Dean swallowed thickly. "I uhh… I kinda lied- No wait, wait!" He hurried as weapons were realigned and Sam moved to flank him. "I'm not the psychic, he is. I just didn't want the hunters to get my brother." He had bullshit his way out of worse situations before.

The leader looked him over thoroughly. He was about Dean's age with short, dirty-blond hair, like Dean. He even wore a shirt over a t-shirt and a leather jacket. Also like Dean. "What are your names?"

"I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam." He gestured back.

He noticed a few scattered smirks.

"What?" Sam asked timidly from the back.

"It's just funny. You look like I imagined them and I bet Sam's moody one and you're the tough guy, right?" the woman asked with a smile on her face.

Dean was digging the slight Mexican accent. He frowned, not really understanding the joke. "Well… yeah." He took a breath and jerked a thumb at Sam, "He gets PMS-" He was promptly slapped on the back of his head.

The fourth guy huffed and turned back to his colleagues, walking away. "Wow, your parents must've been real fans."

The woman noticed Dean's confusion and explained. "Let's just say you're not the only ones with those names, but you're the first they've ever suited so well." She winked at Dean and turned. "Follow me, gentlemen."

With one last glance at each other the brothers followed her and were swallowed up by the team of armed men.

They walked through the desolate city and soon realized just how far into the future they really were. It turned out that, what had appeared a big city were really just the suburbs. The _real_ sky-rises, the tallest several hundred meters high, peaked up over the horizon the closer they came to the city center. They popped up in all shapes, sizes and colors. One looked like a giant dome of glass. Another looked more like it belonged in a contemporary gallery. Buildings shaped like ovals and hexagons and cubes. Most of them half blown to hell.

Dean didn't remember any of it from any city he'd ever seen. "Where are we?" He asked the woman who had yet to give him her name.

"Old Detroit." she answered.

Several things made Dean's pulse beat faster. The fact that they were once again in the middle of the Devil's playground and that the town didn't look anything like the Detroit he knew. "Old? As in there's a New Detroit?"

The woman chuckled. "No. No it's just that it was abandoned after the blast and people just changed the name to… keep up with the times, I guess." She glanced back. "I'm Soledad, by the way."

Dean grinned quickly. "Sola for short?"

"Only my friends call me that."

"Ahh." Dean quickly backed off. "Nice to meet you, Soledad." Behind him Sam rolled his eyes.

"So uh, what's 'the blast'?" Sam asked sharing his concern with Dean through a glance.

Soledad stopped and turned with a perplexed frown, bringing her comrades up short as well. "Where the hell have you two been hiding?" She looked deeply at them both and waited for an answer. The three guys around her looked jumpy as they gripped their automatic weapons harder.

Sam and Dean shared a nervous look until the answer came to Dean. "We were raised in a bunker." He could almost feel his brother's fury and incredulity through the back of his skull. "Yeah… Our Dad was a bit of a war nut." He smiled to ease the tension.

Soledad seemed to believe him, _amazingly_ – _Fear and Loathing_ _freakily_ – enough.

A shove at Sam had him smiling pleasantly as well. "Yeah. Not real big on…" He gestured vaguely around. "…everything."

"He fought in the war?" Soledad asked seriously.

Dean shrugged mentally. "Yeah." It wasn't a direct lie.

Soledad nodded and resumed her walking. Dean hurried up next to her. "So, Sola-" She glanced at him. "Soledad. Why are you after hunters?" He tried to keep his voice light and inconspicuous, but she glared anyway. Perhaps she didn't like flirty, good-looking men? _Perhaps she's gay_, Dean's mind supplied protectively.

"Jesus, you two really _have_ been living under a rock, haven't you?"

"You could say that," Sam piped up in the back.

"Why the clash of the titans?" Dean asked.

She frowned, not understanding the reference, but understanding the question never the less. "Well I assume you know who Frederic W. Bush was?" She looked deeply at Dean.

He grinned. "Sure."

But almost as if seeing straight through his façade, she rolled her eyes. "The last president?" She guided gently.

"Right," Dean agreed.

"Well he suddenly up and decides one day, about sixty years ago, to do research into psychic antiterrorism. And I guess he found something he didn't like because one day he suddenly decreed that all psychics were enemies of the state." She seemed sadder, Dean noticed. "They were hunted down in their own homes and thrown into concentration camps. And not only psychics, but people suspected of being one. My mother was born in one." She looked at Sam. "Maybe your dad did the right thing, keeping you underground all this time?"

Sam and Dean shared a sad glance. Dean wasn't sure which feeling hid behind his brother's look, but saw it too in guys around them listening in.

_Shit_.

Sam was identifying with them, which meant emo-puppy-hug-the-world-eyes on overtime. It meant muddy waters and a grey area the size of Canada. I meant they were gonna have to bet on corners at some point and Sam was pretty far onto his already.

"Then at some point things spun out of control. The camps were a Petri dish of disease and I guess one day the right one escaped."

"Whatta ya mean?" Sam asked.

She turned to look at them again, this time not believing they didn't know. "The goddamn zombie virus that turns people into deranged killers. The damn disease they were injecting into psychics to create 'ultimate weapons' like some shit-movie." She looked at them as if they should just _know_.

Dean stopped and his heart began pounding faster and faster. "Not the Croatoan virus?" This stopped Sam short as well.

"The what?" Soledad looked confused.

"This disease, does it turn people's eyes red? Make them cut into each other?"

"But it doesn't have a name. It just is." She looked from one man to the other and probed when they continued to look concerned. "What? What's wrong?"

Dean felt his breath coming in quick huffs as he turned to look at his brother.

It was Sam who first spoke. "Dean, we failed…" He looked so sad. So endlessly guilty for something so beyond his control.

And Dean didn't know what to say.

"What are you talking about? Why did you call it 'the croatoan'?"

Dean ran a hand over his mouth and turned. "No reason. Just something our dad used to call it." He started walking again, hoping to ignore any and all questions about who they really were.

"Who the hell are you two?" Soledad mumbled at their side.

Dean's teeth grated together. "Just two brothers walking about." he answered quickly.

Sam lowered his head when she stared and didn't speak the rest of the trek back.

The building where the psychics resided was an abandoned sky rise. Two, actually. Two twin towers, mirroring each other. Creatively designed to look like they were wrapping themselves around each other in constant movement. Dean wondered how all the windows had managed to remain intact. Glass covered the fronts facing each other, as if they were leaning in to kiss. People with guns were waiting outside. A small army it seemed.

He was starting to worry they'd never find that damn book. In his mind the whole thing could've been avoided if Chuck had never started writing the damned things in the first place. He noticed armed men on the ledges and poked at Sam.

His brother didn't seem too happy about the situation either.

"I'm gonna take you to see the Governor and then see about getting you some rooms, if that's ok?" Soledad asked.

"Who's the Governor?" Dean countered.

"He's kinda the one in charge of all the civilians."

"Civilians?" Sam looked up.

"People who aren't psychic or who can't fight."

"You have people here that aren't psychics?" Dean asked.

"We brought you, didn't we?" She glanced back and frowned. "They're people who've left their families because they didn't believe in what they were doing. People who believe as we do, that we have a right to live as free men."

On the way in they saw dozens of people in the entry large hall. It looked like a market. Some were sitting around while others tried to peddle something to the general public.

The leader of their small group, who (to Sam) looked ridiculously like Dean, walked up to a group of soldiers and shook their hands. They traded quick greetings before he rejoined their group. The other two men were quickly dissolving into the throng of people.

"His name's Jason, if you're interested." Soledad said and pointed to her commander.

Dean nodded at him as did Sam. "I'm gonna follow you up and get debriefed." Jason said. They took the stairs instead of the elevator.

"Elevator's down?" Dean asked absently.

Soledad grinned. "It has been for quite some time."

"What about the people on the top floors?" Sam asked.

"They hardly ever leave." she looked back. "There's a reason they're hidden away from the public. Most of them are victims of the camps. Their minds are so broken they have no control over their powers." she explained. "Most of them are a danger to the public and choose to stay hidden to avoid any mishaps. The top ten stories are sealed off."

Again Sam and Dean shared a look, imagining quiet floors and a lot of locked rooms.

"We're only going up three floors." she finished.

At the second floor Sam and Dean were both huffing for breath. Sam, albeit a little more stealthily than his older brother. "You alright, man?" he grinned.

Dean eyeballed him and shoved past on his way up.

"The Governor is the one in charge of the people in this building. Jason is the one in charge of the battalion."

"You guys?" Dean clarified.

Soledad nodded.

"I don't actually have to be debriefed by Sonner, but I do it so he'll know what I know." Jason explained quickly. "Plus he's kinda a nice guy."

Dean nodded and followed them into a hall. Two unarmed men were guarding the door. "Why don't they have guns?" Sam asked.

Soledad glanced back. "They don't need them."

The double doors opened to a large office full of boxes. Out of some of them guns were showing. Dean did a double take when one caught his eye. "Is that a Gatling?"

Sonner smiled from behind his desk. "Jason asked me if I had room to store some of their supplies. I said yes." He was positively beaming out calm and friendly vibes. Even Dean could sense that. Sam practically melted.

"We'll have 'em outta here in a week or so, it's just that our armory is still missing a wall after last month's incident." He shrugged with a grin.

Sonner smiled. "Please, have a seat."

Dean and Sam sat in the two chairs in front of the desk while Soledad and Jason slouched on a couple of boxes.

"So. Sola tells me that you two just dropped outta nowhere?" He smiled, but that didn't stop the brothers from getting suspicious.

"How did you know that?" Sam asked with a glance back to her. She had no radio and hadn't left them since returning.

Sonner just smiled and looked down in thought. "It's part of my gift. I can feel those I'm closest to and hear their thoughts. Sometimes even experience what they do." He looked at the brothers calmly. "So, Sam. What's your power?"

Dean didn't at all like the way he was suddenly staring at his brother. From the look of things neither did Sam. "I sometimes see flashes of the future." He glanced at his brother.

"But you haven't had any for a long time, have you?" Sonner guessed and brought both brothers' eyes to rest on him.

"How did you-" Sam stopped himself.

"And that's not all, is it?" Suddenly something a little greedy slipped over Sonner's face, but it was gone in a second. "There's so much more to you, Sam."

Dean was suddenly acutely aware that this guy might know their last names. The Winchester name wasn't one you doled out lightly if you valued your life. Not in their own time and probably not in the future either. Dean didn't need this guy poking around his brain, looking for it. So he figured he'd throw the psychic for a loop. Instead of thinking of himself he started focusing on everything else. Thinking as clearly as possible. _Table, chair, box, another box, and another, and another_…

Sonner seemed amused; whether by his efforts or the situation in general, was unclear.

And slowly, like a needle working its way from his eyeball and into his skull Dean felt Sonner literally digging into his brain. A colorful thought insult later had him smiling and leaning back. He pointed to Dean. "You're a strange one, aren't you?"

Sam glanced over, but Dean didn't take his eyes off Sonner. "If you say so. Look we were just kinda hoping for a little rest and some food, if that's not too much to ask?" He glanced back at Soledad who nodded.

"No of course not." Sonner clasped his hands together and stood from his seat. "Sola, would you please see these men to a couple of rooms and make sure they've got everything they need.

"Sure." She rose simultaneously with Sam and Dean and led the way out. Two floors up were two spare rooms. Sola walked them each to their adjoining bedrooms. Before leaving she told them that food was scarce and would be served in the morning. Dean figured he'd never have the chance to eat a drop, if this time around was like the others and entered his room and looked around. It had grey plaster walls and a cot in the center. There was a little washing basin and a large window overlooking Detroit River and the Canadian border. A few minutes later Sam entered and closed the door.

"Nice view." He pointed out, coming to stand next to his brother. "Hey, you think it's coincidence Cass sent us _here_?" Dean asked out right.

"Nope."

"Yeah, I was afraid of that."

"You think we can trust them?" Sam countered.

"Not in a million years." he answered calmly.

"There's something about that Sonner guy."

"Yeah, I actually _felt_ him poking around my brain." Dean growled. The sun was setting.

"You too?" Sam asked surprised.

He glanced over, slightly annoyed. "Yeah."

"You think he knows who we are?"

"Don't know. I've got no idea how this guy would react to us." He turned to face Sam. "Look we've no way of knowing what they'll do to either of us if they figure out who we are. For all we know they could be working with demons- hell Sonner could _be_ a demon." he added as an afterthought.

"We should'a 'christoed' him." Sam said pensively.

"Mhm," he hummed, not really believing the man to be a demon, but conceding that the main goal of religion was to make you safe rather than sorry. "Think it can wait till morning though. I don't know about you, but I'm kinda ready to call it a night?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded slowly.

Dean knew from experience that Sam's look meant insecurity.

"What's wrong?"

"Just feels a little weird," Sam smiled, clearly a little embarrassed. "Sleeping apart." He was begging with his eyes for Dean not to cut him down where he stood. To just make a light joke and pretend it wasn't because they had both been tortured and conditioned into trusting only themselves.

Dean nodded seriously. "Yeah it does, man." and slapped his shoulder. He might have accepted that Sam wasn't a baby anymore, but he was still the baby brother. Still an open wound since returning from hell and still stuck in the same year-old patterns of behavior like Dean was himself. Then, to lighten the worries that plagued him: "You want me to get your binky, Samantha?"

Sam huffed and slapped his shoulder. "Nah I'll manage… jerk." He turned.

"Bitch," Dean sassed before he closed the door behind him. But yeah, it definitely felt weird not hearing the sound of his brother's snoring. Especially in a building full of strange new sounds.

Pulling the t-shirt over his head and slipping out of his boots, he sat on the bed. He took a moment to stare into the wall as he tried to block all the noises out. People were laughing and celebrating in a room down the hall. He could faintly hear Sam's footsteps in the adjoining room and clung to that. He heard the springs give on his brother's bed.

As reassurance for him he started humming Metallica in the hopes it would travel through the walls. Maybe he'd calm down a bit too. A while later, the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness seeped through the window. There was no electricity so all Dean had was the company of a thousand stars for the night.

Stuck in an unnaturally deep sleep he never heard the rustling sounds in the room next to his, as someone broke in and stole his brother from the bed.


	3. Spilled Ink

Chapter 3: Spilled Ink

Sam woke up, confused and sore. He wasn't in the room he'd fallen asleep in. This one had no windows and no furniture. The walls were grey and looked mostly like the inside of a rubber cell. He shuffled off the floor with his hands running along the wall. The only door in the room was locked. His instinct was to feel his pockets for something to pick it with, but came up empty. So much for Castiel providing them with everything they needed.

He wondered where his brother was and his heart began to pump faster in fear of what they might have done to him. He banged on the door and started shouting. "Soledad?" No one answered. Then he tried a little more aggressively, but still nothing. "Dean!" His voice shrilled as worry took over. His heart was pounding. "Open the door!" He pounded it so hard the hinges rattled.

Then suddenly he heard the lock click and saw the knob turn. Moving to the side and squaring off for the confrontation about to ensue, he watched the door open. Jason and two other men entered cautiously. They didn't notice Sam for about a second and they didn't appear armed. Sam lunged the moment he recognized Jason. He swung out his fist and decked the young man without slowing down.

Then suddenly he was soaring through the room and colliding with the back wall. "No stop!" Jason called his friend who had a hand raised.

_Telepath or demon_, was the first thought that fizzed through Sam's brain. "Christo." Nothing happened. "What've you done with my brother?" He barked out as he came to a stand, a force keeping him against the wall without hurting him.

Jason had a hand out towards Sam and his friend. "Let him go, Kale. He's allowed to freak out. We would too if we woke up to this."

The man named Kale lowered his arm, but still stood at the ready.

Sam felt whatever had pinned him, vanish, but stayed with his back to the wall. "Where's Dean?"

"Dean's fine. He's probably still sleeping." Jason explained calmly.

"Why should I believe you?" Sam demanded, trying not to appear as vulnerable as he felt.

"I'll take you to see him soon." He still had a hand out in surrender. "Please. Just take it easy we're not gonna hurt you."

"Oh yeah?" Sam made a point of looking around the room.

Jason swallowed nervously. "That was Sonner's idea. He thought it might be safer. He said you've got too much power to control. He sent us here to help you."

"Well thanks for the offer, but I'm fine." Sam snarled and paced slowly in front of the back wall like a caged animal.

"Just hear me out. You'll get to see Dean after the meeting."

"What meeting?"

"The council's upstairs, waiting to see you. They want to determine whether or not you're a danger to the rest of us. We all went through it, man. Sonner was just worried how you'd react if he told you."

"So he decided to kidnap me?" Sam asked in disbelief. He had one advantage so far which seemed to be that Sonner had underestimated of Dean. Sam wasn't who they needed to worry about. He knew that without a shred of doubt.

"You're still in the same building, just five stories higher. Alright? Can I tell my guys to back off?" Jason asked.

Sam watched the two unarmed men. Kale was a telekinetic, but he wondered what exactly the other one could do that he didn't need weapons. He decided to bide his time and see where it went. He nodded and Jason waved Kale down.

"Alright. You hungry?"

Sam's stomach was doing flip flops so he shook his head. He just wanted out of that room. It wasn't that he was overly claustrophobic, but small rooms just felt too much like Hell. A Cage was a Cage.

"Alright. Then I think we can take you upstairs. I think they're ready to see you." The two men stepped outside the door and Jason waved for Sam to follow them.

"I don't need an escort." Sam grumbled, but walked out in front of Jason.

"I know, but it's just precaution."

Outside the room several people were standing along the walls. They were all dressed like homeless people, Sam realized. Tattered and worn clothes. And they were all staring at the four men as they made their way to the stairwell. Sam followed quietly up two flights of stairs. When they entered he was escorted to a large lecture hall of some kind. Five raised pews were sitting behind each other and curved in a semicircle. On the podium was a single chair. Among the people, sitting in the pews, he noticed the two soldiers from earlier. Several older people, dressed slightly better than the rest, sitting in the front seats.

Front and center was a young girl who couldn't be more than eleven or twelve years old.

Jason walked Sam all the way to the chair and gestured for him to sit. He then leaned in so none of the others would hear. "Just relax and be honest. It might feel a little freaky at first, but you'll be alright. Alright?" He looked Sam hard in the eye and actually seemed genuinely sympathetic.

Sam nodded, unsure of what else to say. _No way in hell I'm gonna be honest. I'm freaking out already_.

"It'll be over soon." Jason said and went to stand by the door next to his two friends.

"Hello, Sam." An old woman said politely, but coldly. "I'm Denna." She placed a hand on her chest. "Do you know what's going to happen?" She asked as if reading from a manual.

Sam locked wide eyes on the spectators. "…No." He glanced at Jason who nodded comfortingly.

"We're going to try and determine whether or not you can be trusted. What your powers are."

Sam swallowed nervously.

"Sonner tells us you weren't completely truthful when you two spoke yesterday." She waited for him to deny or confirm it.

It seemed to Sam that everyone was just ignoring Dean. Taking it for granted that Sam was the real threat. He realized it didn't bother him one bit. "I don't know what you mean." Immediately a sharp pain lanced through his skull and made him curl in on himself. "Guh!" His hands crammed themselves into his thick hair above his brain stem. His heart pounded and his muscles contracted. Then after a few seconds it vanished and left no trace of its presence. "What the f-fuck." He was panting and shivering.

"Call it a lie detector."

He straightened slowly and tried to force his hands down on the arm-rests though they nervously hovered somewhere around his midsection.

"One among us has the ability to sense lies and turn them against the perpetrator." Denna explained calmly. "Now, Sam. What are your powers?"

He pinched his eyes in expectation for another jolt and was almost too scared to speak.

"It's safe to tell the truth here, Sam. No one will judge you or fault you for your mistakes. This is a safe room. Nothing leaves." Denna assured calmly. "What are your powers?"

Sam looked despondently around at the strange faces and wished his brother had been there. For nothing else, then for him to just be in the room as a silent supporter. "I- I don't know." He said and flinched in fear of another painful jolt. When nothing happened he straightened and scoured their faces.

"Have you ever used them?" Denna asked again.

Sam swallowed. "Yes."

"Your visions?" She asked.

He nodded. "Yes."

"What about the powers Sonner claimed you withheld from him?" she continued.

"Tell the truth, Sam." Jason cautioned from the sidelines. His face was a mask of carefully restrained concern.

Sam swallowed and decided there was no way around this particular truth, not particularly wanting another brain-jolt. "I once moved a cabinet with my mind." He remembered too vividly the vision of his brother being shot in the head by Max, hoped they stopped asking there.

"Telekinesis is very common. It's alright." Denna encouraged calmly. "Go on,"

_Dammit!_ Sam tried desperately to find a way around disclosing what else he'd done, but couldn't see one. He considered just legging it for the door, but knew he wouldn't get far. His stomach did a painful twist and his chest got stuck around an inhale before he answered. "I can exorcise demons with my mind."

At this the room came alive with hushed whispers, but one word from Denna calmed them all down. "Quiet." She looked intensely at Sam. "You say you can exorcize demons?"

"Yes," Sam nodded and wondered why they found that hard to believe.

"But how do you know that when there hasn't been a demon on earth for almost two hundred years?" Denna asked darkly.

Sam frowned and glanced at Jason who was looking shocked and confused. "Wh-What?"

"It's been a while since any demon gained access to earth. Not since your namesake closed the Devils' gates before death." Her voice was soft, but serious.

He realized they saw him as either delusional or somehow able to lie without feeling pain. He wasn't sure which was preferable. "What?" He also realized instantly that the 'namesake' she was referring to was himself sometime in his own future…back in the past. Possibly Dean as well.

"Samuel Winchester closed the devil gates on earth the day he died." Denna explained. "Did you not know that?"

Sam felt his eyes tearing up as emotions boiled to the surface. "N-No." _My death? So that means I die old? Young? Slow…_ "I-I… Uhh…" He was trembling and having trouble focusing. Trouble thinking. Ever since that first jolt.

"Have you ever _seen_ a demon, Sam?" Denna asked.

"Yes." Sam whispered, but still the whole room heard. The whispers started back up, but were once again quieted by Denna.

"Where?" she demanded in a harder tone.

"I don't kn- Ahr!" Pain lanced through him again and made him arch over the back-rest of his chair. His knees automatically drew up as it became harder to breathe through it. It wasn't that different to the headaches caused by visions, only amplified and localized. It wasn't even that different from how Lucifer used to snap his ribs because he liked the sound of bones cracking.

His breathing was quick and harsh. "There are too many places- stop!" he cried in pain. It stopped as suddenly as it arrived and left him with tears in his eyes and swimming vision.

"That's not possible," Denna whispered to an old man next to her. "We would have felt it had they returned to the world."

Sam sucked it up and forced his knees to unbend. He squared his jaw and tried to calm his trembling. "Are we done?" he called more roughly than he intended.

Again whispers filled the room. Denna just had to raise her hand to mum all the hushed voices. "What is your full name?" She asked strongly.

Sam knew what was coming. He remembered what Castiel had said about the people of the future not knowing too much. How it would just complicate things. So with his jaw snapped shut he glared at Denna the best he could. It appeared that not speaking was considered the same as lying. "Ahr!" This time he toppled off the chair and landed on his knees. His fingers dug into his head as the pain intensified to a white-hot needle, drilling his skull. "Nnnnnn-Ahr!" _Oh God it hurts make it stop make it stop! _He screamed when the pain bled out and wormed through his spine. Blood started dripping from his nose. His painful cries filled the room until a voice suddenly broke through.

"No. Stop!" Jason kneeled next to Sam with his hands on his shoulders. "It's his right not to tell you. You've learned what you need. He's not a danger to us, now let him go!" Kale and his friend raised their arms and pointed them at Denna, loyal to their captain.

After a few tense seconds of Sam writhing and whimpering in pain, Denna spoke.

"Alright. Let him go."

The pain lifted immediately and Sam drew a deep breath. He felt weak and was shaking badly. His breaths were coming in long sobs. He forcibly stopped himself from sobbing, but the tears had a mind of their own and he couldn't help sniffing. Jason helped him from the ground and swung his arm over the shoulder. They left the room with people talking loudly whilst a few of them just stared in their direction. Upon entering the hall he felt the pressure ease off and was once again able to see straight. His legs still wouldn't cooperate, but he wasn't being dragged anymore. With only a shoulder for support Jason led him downstairs to find his brother.

Dean woke up to a quiet room. The sun was casting a long shadow under the west-side of the building and into the river. Dean stretched and allowed himself a moment in bed. Suddenly someone knocked on the door. He growled. "Yes?"

Soledad entered with a tray of food. "Breakfast for the vessel."

Even though she said it with a smile it still sent a chill through Dean and his face fell.

She looked suspicious. "You know, like Dean Winchester?" She set the tray on the bed and sat down next to it. "Because you're named after him?" She frowned.

"Right," Dean smiled, but it never made it past his nose. It wasn't some frickin' historical event he'd never had personal interest in, it had been his goddamn life for the past two years. Somewhere Missouri's voice snapped at him not to take the Lord's name in vain.

She glanced back out the door a moment and picked at the sheet. "Dean, there's something I need to tell you."

He suddenly started worrying. "What?"

"See, whenever we find a new psychic we take him up to the council to be questioned. To make sure we can trust him."

"My brother." Dean guessed.

"Yeah," She looked at him with a neutral, bordering on sympathetic, expression. "They took him this morning."

"What?" Dean was up and slipping back into his riduculous t-shirt in seconds.

"It's perfectly safe. It's just to see if he's trustworthy. To make sure he really is who he claims to be."

"And if he isn't?" Dean growled dangerously.

A second-long frown folded her skin. "If they think he's a danger they might lock him up for a few days, but… I mean, he isn't right?" She looked at him pleadingly.

"Jesus!" _Lord's name!_ Dean hissed and was out the door with her right behind. Just as he exited his room he saw Jason dragging a very pale looking and _bleeding_ Sam down the hall. "Sammy?!" His big brotherly emotions all went into overdrive in a second flat.

"Dean," came the relieved response.

He placed both hands on the side of Sam's face and looked at him a second. "What the hell happened?" he growled at the guy holding him up._ Jason-or-something-other_.

The guy looked downright sick with guilt. "They went a bit too far this time." As he said it, his eyes slid to Sola and the two shared a look.

"Shit. Get him into my room." Dean grabbed Sam's other arm despite his weak objections that _he was fine and could walk two feet on his own_. "Sit down." Dean coaxed and grabbed his shoulders, again looking into his eyes. "What did they do to you?"

Sam dipped tiredly back with a groan and Dean guided him down. It was Jason who answered. "He wouldn't tell them his name so they tried to make him."

"Jesus _Christ_." Dean whirled to a stand the second his brother was down. "Is this what you do with all your _civilians_?" He spat out the word like a curse, advancing on Jason. Never again would he use it in a derogative way. Didn't feel good to be on the receiving end.

"I-" Jason glanced at Soledad before he continued. "They wanted to know who he was because he told them he could exorcise demons."

"So?" Dean barked.

"There hasn't been a demon on earth in three hundred years." Jason explained persistently. "I may not condone the way they do it, but it works and it keeps _us safe_ from people trying to infiltrate our home." He ground his jaw as Dean squared off against him.

"If he's hurt, it's not the big bad psychic you'll have to worry about. I will personally send you all screaming for the gates. You understand?" Dean barked.

Jason swallowed nervously and looked away. Considering it a win, Dean backed down and went back to his brother.

* * *

AN: A little abrupt ending perhaps, but at least no one jumped off anything this time :)


	4. Sunlight

AN: I think I've come to the conclusion that I hate my computer. I spend hours of my life working and...well... wasting time on it, forgetting what a spiteful little bitch she is. Wrote a lovely rant that was completely deleted, but one I will try to recreate nevertheless. Because I'm stubborn that way. :D

But! Anyway. I think the reason SoullessSam was good for Dean was because most of Dean's issues come from his brother, right? So Sam being soulless helped Dean-on-TV to realize just exactly how much worse life could look. Then I started thinking: What if Dean-on-paper had no such experience? It seems RoboSam somehow pounded through just how bad the consequences of his actions (diving into hell) were. So it's resonable to assume that without that year and a half Dean wouldn't have seen the gesture for quite what it was worth. Would've made him less inclined to let go of the whimpy teenage girl emotions that seemed right at home in most of his monologues during the 4'th season and more inclined to take his brother for granted. Not literally or callously so of course, because Dean is awesome :) But yeah. Agree, disagree? Comments, questions?

* * *

Chapter 4: Sunlight

Later in the day Dean was ready to leave. He wanted Sam and himself as far away from these freaks as possible. He was considering jumping ship and searching out the hunters. Maybe they'd have a slightly more liberal view of things? He glanced down at Sam, still resting and doubted it. But when someone knocked on the door he realized he was ready to take that chance.

"Dean? Can I come in?" It was Soledad on the other side.

Dean stared at it before growling in response.

She entered with her hands in her pockets. "How's he doing?"

"Still sleeping."

"Everybody's talking outside."

"Yeah, what're they saying?" Dean didn't really care, but even _that_ conversation was better than the no conversation coming from his brother.

"They're worried." She looked long and hard at him. "They want answers, but Denna's keeping tight about it.

"Denna's the bitch that did this, right?" He gestured offhandedly to Sam.

"She was the one who ordered it yes. I'm not sure who has that particular power, though." She drew a deep breath. "Are you leaving?"

Dean stared at his brother's limp form. "Yes."

She nodded with her eyes downcast. "When?"

"As soon as he's ready."

She nodded again and waited silently for half a minute. When she realized he was done talking she left. Dean stayed on the bed, not out of some twisted sense of devotion, no. There was just nothing better to do. No company, a tiny bowl of boring oatmeal that was now cold, no entertainment. Just the sound of people walking by outside his door occasionally and the tense feeling that any minute someone would break in and take his brother from him all over again. It was killing him quicker than cholesterol ever would.

* * *

Later that evening Sam woke up, feeling weak, but ready to leave. He agreed with Dean that it was too risky to stay if there was a chance the psychics could discover who they really were. They left through the front door at night. It was two nights past a full moon, but the sky was clear so even with a city wide blackout the streets were visible.

Jason and his soldiers watched them leave, but didn't try to stop them. No one did.

* * *

The road stretched out in front of them like a river. Dean suddenly got an eerie flashback to his trip through heaven. The sun had come up about half an hour earlier. He frowned into the already bright dawn. Sam was keeping up, but looking washed out amd they both stopped automatically when a flutter of air brushed by.

"Sam,"

Sam looked up.

A few feet in front of them Castiel was standing, watching them both while a smile slowly split his face. "Dean. Sam." He wasn't in his usual trench coat, but in a black suit like his dick-brothers all wore. Set Dean's teeth on edge. "It's good to see you, my friends." He placed one hand on each of their shoulders.

"Cass?" Sam patted his arm back and smiled. Washed out and weak looking.

Dean wasn't as forgiving. "Took you long enough."

Cass released them and looked down. "I realize. It's becoming increasingly difficult for us to come to earth."

"Why?" Sam asked concerned.

"We believe the psychics have a way of sensing our presence. Whenever one of us descends, the psychics come."

Dean looked around on instinct. He remembered more than people gave him credit for. Like the fact that some demons scared the angels. Like the fact that all demons were once human. The most inner private, little theory in the very back of his mind said that maybe angels could learn to fear humans as well. Maybe there was a really good reason why Sam was no one's favorite angel-pet. Maybe his powers being evil was never the problem. Maybe it was just that his powers existed at all.

Sam frowned, completely engrossed. "But why not just let them see you?"

"If we did they would kill us." Castiel's voice dipped.

"What, why? How?" Sam asked softly in disbelief.

"The world has changed since you left it." Which was predictably vague.

Maybe this Castiel had a rule about sharing too much info with people outside his own time zone as well? "Speaking of that-" Dean interrupted. "If I left three hundred years ago and technically hasn't returned yet, does that mean this hasn't happened at all?"

"You are asking if you changed history?" Castiel frowned. "No the past has already happened. In the past you and Sam are returned and continue on as promised," He looked like he tried to smile. "But as for the present, we still need to make sure that happens."

"Which, according to you, it will, right?" Dean asked. He didn't know why, but this Cass made him nervous. And speaking from experience he _knew_ the future could change. Had _made_ it change himself. So either this was different because Cass was on their side and the reason they'd been brought here, or he was lying. The latter didn't really take hold consciously, but festered somewhere in his subconscious and joined the pre-existing anger.

"But why do things look like this if we returned?" Sam interrupted.

"Because you were never meant to ensure everlasting peace," the angel answered as if reading off a grocery list.

They all tensed. Dean knew it wasn't what his brother had hoped to hear, but knew it was a probable answer and possibly also the cause of Cass' unusual behavior. Sam was too caught up in the grand scheme of things, because it wasn't that far-fetched to believe they could _do_ it, given the right tools. They had stopped several apocalypses so far, right? Why not ensure everlasting peace on earth?

But declaring the moment passed and over, Dean continued. "Well alright then," He clapped his hands. "Don't know about you guys, but I feel a little lighter already." He slapped his brother's shoulder. "Now. About this book?"

"Of course. I don't have much time. They already know I'm here."

"How can you tell?"

"I can feel them coming. The book was last seen in the library."

Dean tried with all his might not to sigh. "Right. Which one?"

"Either one." Castiel looked straight at him. He was more distanced than the Cass he knew. "On the Day of Destruction most libraries were burnt down. Collectors of the Winchester Chronicles were assassinated and their books were burned."

"Why?"

"We do not know."

"And you think one of these books is still in the library?" Dean asked in disbelief.

"Yes, but I doubt it's safe for you to go there. The only library in the vicinity is across the river."

"In Canada?" Sam asked.

Immediately Dean's smile returned. "I always wanted to go to Canada."

Sam huffed at him.

"The library is in the sealed zone."

Dean's grin melted off. "And what exactly is sealed _inside_ the sealed zone?"

"Croatoans." Castiel answered, his eyes continuously looking over their surroundings.

"Look, are you _sure_ a copy of the book is there?" Sam asked.

"Yes."

"And there's nowhere else nearby it could be?"

"I don't believe so. I've looked very thoroughly-" He stopped short when something the brothers couldn't hear caught his attention.

"Cass, what is it?" Dean asked, looking around again.

"They're coming. I must go." His voice suddenly got urgent. "There is an old museum two blocks west. Go there for the weapons you need."

"No offense, but I don't think a museum's gonna have what we need." Dean said.

"In the section dedicated to you, they will." Castiel said before again placing one hand on each their shoulders and vanishing.

Sam and Dean flinched when distant voices reached their ears. "Don't know about you, but I doubt they'll be very understanding of us consorting with supernatural creatures."

"Yeah," Sam agreed and led them into an alley. "You don't think they can sense us, do you?"

The brothers stared at each other until a shout sounded much closer. "Don't know, but I'm not waiting around to find out." He pulled Sam with him and made his way towards the museum.

* * *

"_Detroit Wax Museum_," Dean read aloud with a grimace. "Seriously?"

Sam pushed them inside before he could change his mind.

"What the hell is a wax museum doing with a gun exhibit?" Inside everything was a mess. Completely quiet as well.

"Maybe Cass got it wrong and they're fakes?" Sam wondered and earned a scowl from his brother.

"_The Winchester Exhibit_? This way," Dean pointed, still a little sour. Not having had anything but freeze-dried oatmeal since yesterday morning was starting to wear on him. Sam had eaten little else as well, but was faring much better which just irked the older brother more.

They entered a large hall and stopped in awe. Dust covered everything, but it was still abundantly clear that they had been the ones celebrated. There was even a black Chevy Impala placed on a podium. Dean walked over to it with an inconsolable longing and read the little plaque. "This is the car which once belonged to the infamous Winchester brothers. This car is a copy of the vehicle in which they traveled the country to hunt demons, ghosts and monsters."

"It does _not_ say '_infamous'_." Sam mocked.

"Dude, I swear," Dean turned with a grin. "And they even got all the details on it too," he noted with a touch of sadness. "I guess the stuff Chuck put in the books. Right down to that little army-man you crammed into the backseat ashtray."

Sam smiled and moved through the room. The car had stopped Lucifer, but it wasn't _the_ car, nor was the car more important than his brother or the future of the entire human race. He was cogent enough to put things into perspective despite the constant fear that had been creeping ever closer since his resurrection.

Dean stopped in front of figures of him and Sam. "They still think you look like Fabio," he grumbled.

"I think I found it." Sam called and moved to the locked weapons cabinet.

"Bingo." Dean came over and stared at his very own arsenal. "Time to see if it's real." He looked around and found a fire extinguisher to smash the old locks with. The locks broke and the Plexiglas cabinet door slid open to reveal items in mint condition. "Oh this is definitely better than last time," he remarked absently as he plucked down a .45. "Wanna see if it works?" He took a clip and aligned for a shot into the far wall. He pulled the trigger and felt the recoil jerk his entire arm. It felt good. Familiar.

"Huh," Sam said pleasantly and took the Taurus. "You think these are actually our weapons?"

Dean looked at the display. "Don't know. The colt ain't here,"

"Yeah I noticed." Sam slid a clip into the Taurus and checked the sights. "Whatta ya think we'll need?"

Dean glanced up before returning attention to the gun. "Everything."

They grabbed as much as they could carry. His brother favored the knife section, über-geek that he was, while Dean grabbed a little from everywhere. Paperclips, knuckles, switchblades, a kick-ass hunting knife, boot knife. Sam found a display of mini-knives to be used for throwing no doubt. His brother was such a block-head sometimes, it was ridiculous. They both found iron knives and silver plated knives. Dean frowned when something innocuous looking caught his attention. Another weapon as the sign declared. This one was locked away in a separate display case.

"Dude," He tapped Sam's shoulder and grabbed the lock-picking set from the wall.

"What is it?"

"Looks like a can opener." Dean smirked and pulled it from the wall. He grabbed it. "Shit, Sam. It's plastic." He snorted and waved it at his brother.

Sam frowned uneasily at it and drew back. "Maybe you shouldn't play with it, man?"

Dean was swinging it around his index finger through a little hole at the tip. "C'mon, it's like a toy." He said mockingly, but changed his tone to pure curiosity in a second. "Whatta ya think we used it for?"

"Well, what does it say?" Sam gestured to the plaque over its cage.

Dean wheezed in amusement. "The Predator!" He held it up proudly. "Created to inflict damage to the body's chakra points." He was holding it loosely in one hand. It was shaped like a hand without fingers with a slightly curved handle. "One hundred percent biodegradable, this weapon is completely environmentally friendly and was introduced to the Winchester arsenal in the mid 21'st century." He snorted. At the edge where the index- and middle finger should've sat it was ribbed. Where the ring- and pinky finger should've been there was a tiny, elongated blade, barely broad enough for cutting paper. "Says here it was designed to be used in a special U.S. Armed Forces branch so we probably got it from one of dad's army buddies."

"Say which branch?" Sam asked absently while picking out his favorites among the large knife selection.

"No." Where the thumb should've been it went into a little tip, like tip of a drop. A few seconds passed while Sam was suiting up for war until Dean tore himself away from the plaque. "Says here you just tap the little tip-thingy right above the collarbone or in the center of the forehead." He turned the Predator in his hand and studied the drip-shaped _weapon_. He then tapped the little device against Sam's forehead without any real gusto.

Sam flinched back violently and stumbled down in an explosion of flailing arms and curses. "Jesus!" He huffed indignantly as he rose to his feet.

Granted, it was probably Dean's low blood sugar that made him a little more sadistic than usual, but he really did intend to apologize. "Shit, I'm sorry!" Though he didn't really look sorry. He was smiling. _Gleefully_. "Said you could deck a man with just one tap." He looked at the little plastic thingy. "Maybe I didn't hit hard enough?"

Sam scrambled back as he advanced again. "Dude, don't!" He held up his hand.

"C'mon, suck it up." he teased.

"Do you have any idea how much that hurt?" Sam rubbed his forehead with a scowl.

"I promise I won't do it again." Dean stepped back and allowed his brother to finish getting his weapons. The second Sam let his guard down Dean turned in a whirl and slipped one of Sam's fingers through the small hole in the device and flipped him around.

Sam landed on his back, panting. "What the fuck is wrong with you!" he shouted when he managed to get to his feet.

Dean was all teeth. "Dude, this is fucking awesome! I hardly moved at all!" His voice shrilled on the last sentence.

Sam grumbled and dusted himself off before starting for the door. "You're insane, ya know that."

"You're surprised?" Dean just grabbed a spare clip and the Predator before following his brother out. _Fuckin' AWESOME!_ He pumped a fist in the air.

* * *

Unfortunately for both of them Dean's lightheartedness didn't last for long. Just inside the main entrance they heard the commotion of people, trying to get in. They turned back and headed out the back entrance. "Guess we figured out whether or not they knew where we were," he grumbled as they fled down an alley.

They reached the old Ambassador Bridge in a full out run when it dawned on them exactly how difficult this job was going to be. "It's gone," Sam sighed with a sinking feeling as he took in the suspension bridge which looked like a giant had taken a bite out of it in the middle. About half a mile out the wires had been ripped out of their sockets when the lane had collapsed, probably an attempt to contain the Croatian infection on the Canadian side.

"Wonder how tall this thing is," Dean wondered aloud as they trotted closer to the gaping hole.

They stopped a safe distance away and looked down into the foaming masses of the Detroit River.

"It's 152 ft. tall and 7.500 ft. long." Sam fired off without even having to think about it.

"You think explosives did this?" Dean noted that it looked like missiles had been dropped, which wasn't at all comforting, exposing the middle part of the bridge. Leaving no way to go but down. He sighed and came to a complete stop with his brother next to him, just seven feet from the edge. "We're gonna have to cross it." he said when shouts echoed among the abandoned streets behind them. It wouldn't be long until they'd be able to see the psychics storming the bridge.

"How? Fly?" Sam mouthed off. He was huffing and puffing. "A fall of about 150 feet is survivable, but not really something I'm anxious to try."

"Yeah," Dean was looking down with an intense expression. "I bet my burger they won't follow, though." He got a look in his eye that could only be described as mild insanity and passion, if one was being generous one might say he looked just crazy enough.

The psychics appeared around a building in the distance. Still about half a mile out, but gaining. Not running anymore now that they had their prey cornered.

Sam was starting to doubt his brother's objectivism, favoring a starvation induced sugar imbalance as a possibility for his outrageous suggestion, but began considering it when he heard them yelling their names. With a curse, he started thinking of ways to jump without breaking both legs on impact. Or their necks.

Dean lunged, but Sam grabbed his jacket with a burst of panic. "We can't just dive off, we won't survive!"

The older brother frowned in the direction they'd come at the group of about fifty or sixty psychics, striding down the bridge. Apparently they weren't expecting them to jump either if their leisurely tempo was any suggestion, and the inference just pissed Dean off. "So what do we do. How do we get outta this?" He was beginning to panic.

Sam looked around. Where the roads in the city were empty the bridge was littered with busted cars. Weird looking cars, but still. Metallic hulks, some of them leaning over the edge like they were balancing on an inch. "We break the water."

"_What_?"

He moved over to one of the teetering cars and walked around it. "We break the surface right before we hit it."

"Sam, it's _water_." Dean sounded convinced his brother had finally gone off the deep end. He winced at the thought and looked down.

"Yeah but the surface of water is harder on impact than earth-" he glanced back when someone yelled. He thought it might be Jason. "If you hit the water wrong it's like diving into a concrete wall." He moved around to the car and tried to nudge it. It bobbed willingly and looked just about to fall. "Basically we'd explode." He looked up at his brother who was quickly losing his zeal to make the Fugitive swan dive he'd envisioned before.

"But you _can_ survive it, right?" His eyes were fixed on the advancing psychics. They were trotting now and halfway to their position. Big-ass, tactical assault rifles slung over their arms.

"In theory you can if you break the surface just before you hit and if you hit the water just right."

"How?" Dean was beginning to feel the panic rip him two ways. One side of his brain really wanted out of there while the other was contemplating the odds of going up against several dozen psychics.

"I think a sailor's dive." Sam looked up at caught his brother's eye.

"Great. What's that?"

"You basically roll into a ball and make sure to hit the water with your shoulders. Tuck your head in."

"A cannonball?" He pitched an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Sam shrugged. "If you roll you shouldn't get the same shock as you would from just hitting the water feet or head first." He glanced over the edge. "Besides our heads would probably be pressed into our chest cavity at this height."

Dean swallowed and took a few steps closer to the car. "So roll into a ball, make sure I hit the water with my shoulders and keep rolling as I do?"

"And take a deep breath before impact, yeah."

"Great." He sighed, beginning to accept that this was actually happening. He'd liked it better when the plan had been to just jump off and hope for the best. Swallowing again and breathing a deep sigh, he moved over opposite his brother behind the car. "So we push in the car and follow it down."

"Wait a second or two before we jump, and it should work." Sam looked like he was about to shit himself.

Dean could relate. "And we won't hit the car in the water?"

"Uh,"

His incredulous expression actually made Sam wince. "_Uh_? You don't _know_!"

"Dean, this isn't an exact science-"

"Unless you're a stuntman-"

"Which I'm not so this is a badass gamble no matter how you spin it!"

Dean looked over the edge and back at the psychics who were now so close that he could make out individual faces. Soledad and Jason were among them, he noted. "How tall you say this thing was?"

"152 feet."

"And an average human can survive a fall of up to one-fifty?"

His hands were shaking. "Yeah." He was staring fixatedly at his brother while Dean looked at the advancing people.

"Wanna try?"

All the air left his lungs in great big _whoosh_. "Alright." Sam grabbed the chassis and waited for his brother to do the same before he pushed.

* * *

"They won't jump," Jason said with a note of worry as he led his guys closer to the two strangers. A car tipped over the edge.

"They won't."

* * *

Dean watched the car sail over the bridge in a graceful swan dive and heard his brother shout, "_Now!_" before he followed him over the edge in a perfect rendition of Harrison Ford.

* * *

"Holy shit!" Jason cried and began running with his men behind him. As one the entirety of the group inhaled in shock as their two targets dove off the Ambassador and into Detroit River.

* * *

TBC


	5. Julie Blue

AN: Sorry for the break in upload-tempo, but here we go. Thanks for lurking ;)

* * *

Chapter 5: Julie Blue

The fall was the worst part.

Dean had thought the impact would be the real clincher, but it turned out the first three seconds after lunging off solid concrete was what scared him into near cardiac-arrest and a very unmanly scream. All the air in his lungs was pushed out as he sailed down with Sam a few feet to his left, looking for a brief moment like a giant, gangly, weightless baby with his hair waving about like that. His stomach rose into his chest and the eerie feeling of zero gravity was quickly followed by the thought: _Oh sweet Jesus, what did I just do?!_

About half way down – which he couldn't have guessed at his current state, but Sam somehow managed to hit – he saw his brother curl up into a loose ball and start rolling through the air. He followed his example and lost his last shred of dignity when the disorientation became complete. He had no idea which way was up or down. He had no idea when he'd hit the water, only that it was imminent. He couldn't hear it, but he was sure he was screaming.

And then, with the force of being plowed into by that fucking truck, it happened.

He hit the surface a fraction of a second after his brother and only about four seconds after the car. What neither man had considered in their panic was the air bubble which was bound to form in the cabin when the vehicle hit the water. Though through some force of sheer dumb luck the windows of the car blew out on impact and water proceeded to fill it and weigh it down only three seconds later. A half-ton electrically powered magnet located under the belly of the car helped generously with that.

The next second, when both brothers hit the surface, it was already two and a half feet below sea-level and plummeting. The result was that they both hit the water, rolling, and managed to only graze the rear bumper on their descent.

For seconds that felt like hours the world was confusing and frightening. They clawed through the ice cold water, desperate to surface. Sam was the first one up and saw the shore as the first thing. The wrong side of the river was of course the one they were closest to and the current was carrying them away.

His muscles were instantly cramping up and refusing to cooperate. He was kicking forward like a clumsy dog, complete with hair in his face, when he saw his brother surface and struggle to stay above water. "Dean!" He coughed when water got into his nose.

"Sa-" The rest was gurgled as he went under.

Sam swam as hard as he could against the current till he felt his numb stumps, which had once been sensitive fingers, connect with something malleable. Dean's jacketed back. He pulled up and was pulled down a little himself. "Drop your guns," he spluttered out as he tried to keep one hand on his brother and locate the shore at the same time. He almost gave up when he noticed how far away it seemed.

He started stripping the weapons off his own person when Dean clumsily began doing the same, but mostly failing. He kicked off his boots and shrugged out of his jacket, trying to remember which direction they wanted to go and actually _go_ that way. All four activities were astronimically harder than anything he'd ever had to do before in his life. "I-" He went under, but was quickly resurfaced because of Dean's surprise-grip on his arm. "I think we're close!" he cried over the cold and fear he was feeling. My god, what if, after everything, this was how they went? A drowning? He'd heard it wasn't a nice experience.

Something about the water turning to fire when it reached your lungs. He was slowly starting to get that as he swallowed more and more water with each breath a feeling it burn down his windpipe. His limbs were getting heavier and harder to control, and he had to fight between coughing or breathing, but they were getting closer. The current was doing the work for them. Swirling them down the wide river in big, undercurrent circles that brought them ever closer to the opposite shore.

* * *

Dean was feeling a strange second wind after his brother went under for a second. Something very close to panic had released a tsunami of adrenalin into his system and sharpened his head, though not his strength. He had a vague idea which direction they were headed and where they needed to go and was struggling to just stay above water. He thought the shore looked like it had moved further away somehow. "I-" Water surrounded him a second. "I think it's th-this way!" His limbs were getting too heavy for him to lift. Part of him felt like just giving up and letting the current claim him. Another part was screaming for him to keep moving. Screaming his name over and over. Dean barely caught a glance at Sam, but instantly connected the dots to him doing the screaming.

"Dean! You're going the wrong way!" he shouted with a panic Dean never thought he could possess. He was waving his arms one second and grabbing a hold the next.

Dean felt himself get pulled through the water until they were both floating with the current. He felt himself impact with his brother's chest and wondered briefly that there was no difference in warmth between the water and his brother.

A wave splashed some water in his face but he felt oddly weightless and comfortable as the current directed them where it wanted them to go. The sun was boiling hot on his face and the water was like being trapped in a casket of ice, but the difference between the two extremes was quickly getting harder to distinguish.

"_Dea…_"

Suddenly the weightlessness shifted. Clouds danced over his face and black rubble grated the heels of his feet. He was freezing, he realized. Being dragged. He had lost a shoe. _Dammit!_ Those were good boots.

"Dean?"

Sam's worried face popped up inches from his own. Everything looked a little blurry, like it was vibrating at a high frequency.

"J-Jesus, you're going into hyperth-th-ermia. We g-gotta get you up." Sam forcefully hauled him to his feet and stumbled in the process.

Most of all Dean just wanted to tell him to knock it the hell off, but his mouth wasn't working properly. Or was it his brain? It got increasingly colder.

"Dean, stand up for a second." He was hauled to his feet and felt, more than saw, Sam bend over to hurl. Water splashed onto the pebbles. Next he knew his pants were being pulled off by someone with shaky fingers. His .45 clattered to the ground. He didn't know how he managed to stay on his feet, or how he'd managed to hold on to the gun for that matter. For a second the wind against his bare legs felt arctic, but then it felt like shedding his skin as blood rushed back into tiny blood vessels. A cold and clammy second layer that felt better off. "Ok-kay, c'mon." Sam was pulling his t-shirt and jacket off as well. Taking his own clothes off in the process and rubbing Dean's arms.

Dean wavered a few seconds, vaguely aware that his brother was hugging him and swaying slightly. _Well isn't this manly_. He arched a brow and tried to look down without jostling too much. "S-Sam?" His voice was a weak imitation of its usual timber. Sam turned his head with jerking movements. "Wh-Why're j-j-j-ya huggin' m-me?"

"F-for warmth." Sam stuttered.

Dean nodded tiredly, accepting the awkwardness of the moment. His body was heating up surprisingly quick, or turning slightly less freezing which to him was the same thing right at that moment. His brother looked pink. He did too. Pink and shivering all over. "Wh-What do w-we do about our clothes?" he asked with a longing look at his lone boot.

"Gotta be a strip mall or som-something around," Sam was forcibly holding back his shivers. He swallowed them.

"Wh-What about all the weapons?" Dean leaned his head back and looked up. The sun was still high in the sky. Warm. One handgun wouldn't hold off monsters and he had the strangest feeling that the longer they stayed in this future the bigger and badder they'd see.

Sam stopped rubbing his arms a second and thought.

"I think I've still g-got the Pr-Predator." Dean mused.

"And I got at least a couple of knives in my socks." Sam said with his eyes on the river. He was taking deep, exaggerated breaths in an attempt to warm up.

"I f-feel better," Dean said quietly. His hands were shaking and his fingers were almost beetroot-red and burning, but his head was clearing.

Sam stepped back and gave him a once over. "Yeah?" A rogue shiver made goosebumps stand out.

He nodded and rubbed his hands together. "Yeah," Shaking them to get the blood flowing. God, they were both in their underwear.

"You think you can walk?"

Dean frowned, but nodded. His legs were working again. Burning like the rest of him. "I need some new shoes."

His brother was missing both. "We'll find some. C'mon." Sam bent down to pull their dripping clothes off the ground and almost fell over. Dean grabbed him and nudged them along.

He became painfully coherent when a spray painted sign declared "Welcome to Hell".

_Splendid_, he thought roaring sarcasm, _they had landed on the right side_.

The Croatoan side.

* * *

Denna joined the scouting team she had sent after the creature. An angel. On earth. It was rare for them to drop down, but when they did it never resulted in anything good. She remembered the desertion fifty years ago.

Many of the angels were dissatisfied immediately after the re-entrapment of Lucifer. They wanted their master free at all costs, but didn't know how. Once the first and last seals were broken that was it. There was no going back. Some angels had resented that and started searching for another way to bring about the end. The search had continued for over two hundred years.

Denna had only heard rumors of the Devil's son. She knew about Lilith from the Gospels, but had never heard of a son.

This concerned her greatly for many years. She started seeking out survivors of the concentration camps. There were more than she thought. She began training them. Trusting them. Until one day she met a young woman in a small town.

She knew the town, but not the people in it. The woman was found naked in the street, covered in soot, hair burned off, but not a mark on her skin. Houses were burning to ashes and the people with them. Denna knew the woman had been the cause, but instead of killing her she took her in and educated her. Taught her to hate the supernatural forces that were trying to destroy their world. Taught her to hate hunters that tried to destroy them.

The woman performed spectacularly. With each week she discovered a new ability. Even a few Denna didn't yet know of.

They had abandoned the search for the angel when her tracker sensed two different presences. "Do you know which direction they're going?" she asked Jason, overlooking the ruined bridge, the river and the dead zone that now belonged to the monsters.

"East." He closed his eyes in that direction.

"We'll get them eventually." she said. They were connected to the appearance somehow. It was no accident that an angel showed up on earth after centuries of silence. It was no accident that the trail the angel left led her to the two strangers either.

"Why are they so important?" he asked and turned to her.

Denna studied him a moment. "I believe we've encountered two people we shouldn't have been able to."

Jason smiled in disbelief. "Winchesters?" he asked mockingly. In truth the idea had crossed his mind when they took the younger for questioning. But it was impossible and yet…"How?"

"An angel." Denna answered with her eyes in the direction Jason's had been.

"An angel. On earth?"

"I realize how absurd it must sound to someone who's never experienced the presence of angels." she explained patiently.

"If we follow them," Jason said. "-we risk countless lives. That zone's been off limits for five decades for a reason."

"I believe that if we _don't_ follow them, if we reconcile with the fact of losing them again, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives." she said somberly.

He didn't like it. It meant hauling ill-prepared men and women into an area they had no business in. He didn't understand Denna's facination, nor Sonner's support. "Did you bring reinforcements?"

"I brought every man and woman able to bear arms and who are still of sound mind." And even a few that couldn't and weren't, but he needn't know that.

"Good. Because when we get in there, we might come up against things that we can't beat with our powers."

Denna nodded. "We'll wait here for Sonner's group. He's bringing someone he believes can help."

"Who?"

"Another psychic."

"Well I hope they can get us across the river 'cause until we do that, we're not going anywhere." he said and turned back to his soldiers, ordering them to stand down. There was nothing to do but wait.

Denna watched the tracker withdraw to his people and thought again of the young woman she'd found. How she had taken her in only to learn that she was a danger to those around her. She was the first one Denna trapped in the attic of their sky rise. The first of many.

* * *

Dean was in new, dry clothes. They were a little too pretty for his liking and a lot moth-eaten, but worked in lack of better. They'd found a Wall-Mart. Totally abandoned, with fifty year old clothes still hanging on the racks. Dean managed to find a decent pair of hiking boots and claimed them as his own. So far they hadn't seen any Croats, but he was just waiting for them to make their move.

They crossed a few blown-out storefronts, coming out of the mall. Still no sign of life. "You think they escaped?" Sam asked. They exited the mall and hurried across the deserted parking lot.

"Or died?" Dean supplied with a raised brow. "Not really," he finished quietly, then spotted something in an alley and tugged at his brother's sleeve. "Dude,"

Sam stopped and looked.

"Think I found a gun store," Dean saw the extinguished neon sign exclaiming _Tallot's Weaponry_.

"Looks expensive," Sam commented, following his brother inside.

Dean shot him a bored look. "If there's anything I've learned it's that everything's free in the future."

Sam huffed at him.

"Seriously. My acid trip, my rules." He said and pulled out the .45. It was low on bullets.

Sam pulled a knife and moved behind his brother.

They moved into the dusty, old gun store. The counter was missing and the floor was littered with debris. The walls had been stripped clean of any and all weapons. Dean hated that. As if Croats weren't bad enough. They might even have armed up this time.

"Huh," Sam breathed quietly.

"What?"

"I'm kinda wondering what three hundred years of evolution has done to them."

"Who? Croats?"

Sam nodded.

"Why?"

He shrugged and shuddered. "Watched the wrong movie before coming here, I guess."

"Oh yeah? Which one?" Dean sounded pleasantly intrigued and tried not to think of his last visit to the future. After only five years the croats of that timeline had gathered in groups. Hunting together. It showed intelligence and not just an aimless need to kill. But maybe that was their human side, not their psycho-killer side. Maybe that was all that was left after five years.

"Pandorum or something." Sam answered, watching his steps. Glass crunched under his boots.

"Really? Heard it sucked."

"Naw. Kinda cool. Scary. Even with the shit we deal with." He allowed the distraction because every sense was already attuned to his surroundings. A little _less_ tension wouldn't go amiss.

"Wow."

"Yeah, I know right?"

"Definitely." Dean said and entered the backroom. Shelves had been cleaned out as well as a locked safe. "Croats are stupid though, right? Simpleminded."

"Think so." Sam said and looked in the same direction as his brother.

"Then how did the bastards break into a safe?"

"Could've been normal people during the breakout?" Sam suggested.

_Guess so_, Dean conceded quietly and checked an unlocked door. Another room. Looked like some sort of coffee room. He noticed a heavy-duty desk in the corner and followed a hunch. "Help me with this,"

Sam grabbed a corner and helped pull it out. Dean tapped the back and stopped when it sounded hollow. He shared a quick grin with his brother and started punching a hole with a conveniently located piece of rubble. Soon a secret compartment revealed itself. He stepped back triumphantly with a shotgun, checked it for rounds and passed it to Sam. "Look for shells," he called and started doing the same. He found five rolling around at the bottom of the secret compartment and Sam found a small box in a drawer.

Sam grabbed his liberated rounds and faced his brother. "Don't think we're gonna find anything else-" When Dean nodded, he turned and headed out, but stopped short when he reached the storefront. Dean was close behind him and stopped as well. Sam slowly leveled the shotgun as Dean did with the .45.

In the middle of the store was a child. Completely bald, with huge eyes and a slightly oversized skull.

"Kinda freaking out right now," Sam whispered shakily, the shotgun clenched in his hands.

"Why?" Dean asked calmly and moved around to Sam's side. It was one ugly kid, Dean decided.

The child tipped its head at them like a curious animal. "That thing looks too much like the things from the movie," he whispered.

Dean swallowed, but didn't outright answer. "I think it's a boy." he commented a soothing tone of voice. Perfect for calming horses, but would it work for flesh eating monsters? The boy was carrying something around his chest. Something that looked an awful lot like a homemade bow, he thought. "I say kill him."

Sam swallowed nervously. "You sure?" Sure, it was ugly, but it was still a kid. An infant.

"I mean, he's not a boy. He'd probably eat us if he could." The boy stepped closer and winked his big, brown(red?) eyes, and Dean made an executive decision. "Screw it."

The boy must've heard the change in his tone because suddenly he lunged with a shriek. Dean fired and hit him in the forehead. The boy flinched back and hit the floor. Sam flinched at the sound of the report and heaved deep breaths next to him, never even managing to pull the trigger.

"You alright, dude?"

"Yeah," He didn't sound convincing, but Dean let it slide.

Sam had just been to hell. It was only natural to be a little jittery on his first sorta-hunt. Never the less, he realized it might become a problem if they got caught in a dangerous situation and his brother couldn't take the shot. "You need to tell me if something's wrong, alright?"

Sam nodded and stuck to his brother on their way out of the store, a fact which alone was evidence enough that Sam was too far from _fine_. "At least they still die like they used to." Dean mumbled as he stepped over the kid.

They exited the gun store and looked around. The sun was dipping lower in the sky and coloring it red. "Maybe they evolved into vampires?" he pondered, staring into the sky.

Sam huffed and walked quietly beside him with his eyes out. "Nocturnal hunters, maybe." He sounded so far off Dean had another moment of doubt in his brother's abilities.

"Just keep your head in the game."

"I will." Sam answered defensibly.

* * *

They were staring at the secured zone from the highway hub they had landed on after their unbelievable jump through space. Something he still wasn't sure had really just happened.

The large hunting team was huddled together and pointing their weapons. Only a few among them didn't carry a weapon because their powers were so strong they could kill almost everything. Two of those people were Denna and her slightly younger friend. The company had been joined by the second group and among them was that woman Jason had only ever heard rumors of.

Denna's protogé was about forty five and looked like she belonged in an insane asylum. The young tracker couldn't help wonder about the future of their group if they failed. Seeing as most of them had left the only shelter they knew on one woman's word. He couldn't help but doubt what would become of his family if this woman wasn't as much in control as Denna claimed.

"They went this way," he said after staring into the sky for a moment and enjoying the heavens' deep, red color. His powers were being put to good use, hunting down these two. Sam and Dean – possibly 'Winchester' - if Denna's assumptions were correct. It was like something was cloaking them. Covering their scent and blurring their tracks, but even despite that Sam was still leaving impressions in the ether strong enough to _almost_ see.

Jason didn't know what it was, but he definitely felt intrigued. He started walking, taking point, and the rest of the men and women followed.


	6. 66 Locks

Warning: Graphic description of assault against a minor.

* * *

Chapter 6: 66 Locks

"You mentioned something about a burger?" Sam asked from their vantage point on the library's second floor. So far only one other run-in with a single Croat-infected human and none with the psychics. But he figured that was about to change.

"Eat me," Dean's stomach growled as they watched a large group of people walking down the main road. It was going on two days now without food. They'd only had water because of some abandoned bottles in the Wall-Mart. "We've still got some weapons and if we hurry it might not even come to that." He turned and snuck down the hall.

It was a large library. Several floors and sections within each floor. "Where do you think the book is?" Sam asked as they walked in between heavy shelves. Most still had books in them. A couple bookcases were turned over and a lot of books were strewn over the floor.

"Fantasy?" Dean guessed, not fully understanding the value their life story had come to hold over the course of three hundred years. Not really caring.

Sam frowned, but followed him in that direction. It seemed time spent in libraries had afforded him with an innate sense of direction in any library that crossed his path. He had a sixth sense about certain things. It seemed dusty, old books were one of them. They found the fantasy shelves easy and checked them. They even checked the ones on the floor just to make sure, not finding anything of significance.

Sam thought he found a copy of a seventh Twilight book, but a mocking comment from Dean -_ lucky they kept making those for you, huh Princess_ - in passing and he dropped it. Sam widened his eyes in pleading innocence. It was a curiosity, based on academic interest and he would defend his right for that to his dying day.

"So where else?" Dean was staring into the large hall. Noises and footsteps sounded from the main hall and both brothers knew it was only a matter of time before they'd be discovered, but hoped Cass was ready the second they found the book.

"This way," Sam hinted to another room and closed the French doors behind them. The religion section was lined up with thousands of volumes and mythological lexicons in the back. Sam was instantly intrigued and felt compelled to pull some of the extensive volumes from their slots.

Dean nudged him and pointed to the lexicon section. "Maybe it's labeled as facts?" he suggested very quietly.

The psychics had now entered the rooms next to theirs. They didn't seem agitated, which was also part of the reason Dean didn't feel stressed. All of the approx. 100 people were just quietly walking around in the building. The other reason he felt so calm was the fact that an angel was watching their backs, or so he told himself. In reality – or otherwise known as the place Dean had never had much desire to examine – he realized he was angry. Not just "grouchy from not eating anything but the bugs that flew into his mouth for two days", no he was. Pissed. Off.

Sam mostly ignored him and quietly skimmed the titles before he spotted a few of the supernatural books. "Here they are." he whispered in ill-concealed interest. He ran a finger along their spines until he reached the last one. Someone nocked something over a few rooms away and got a telling off from one of the others. Dean could barely hear them shouting at each other and worried less and less that they would overhear him and Sam.

"Last one's called Two Minutes to Midnight." He glanced over at his brother.

"Where's Swan Song?" Dean asked, worry making its way up his back. He spread his arms when suddenly there were shouts and gunfire from the hall, much closer than before.

They both flinched and ducked behind a toppled bookshelf. "Croats?" Sam whispered.

"Dunno. Probably." He figured, as Sam did, that some of the crispy critters had engaged their stalkers. Heavy oak doors and concrete walls cloaked the sounds of shouting and shooting on the other side.

"Do we help?" The brothers looked at each other, but before they could reach a decision, one was made for them.

* * *

Slithering in the shadows was a creature. A creature that hadn't seen the light of day for nearly six thousand years before it was awoken. A demon, not of smoke, but of earth and blood. They hunted and ate flesh. Any flesh. Even each other's.

Unbeknownst to the brothers, one such demon was making its way towards them at that very moment. It slithered its reptilian feet along the floor. It walked on two legs, but hunched. It had two arms, but only three fingers. It had claws for fingernails and protruding vertebras and a nearly humanoid face. Its teeth were designed for shredding and slowly killing its victims with a mix of bacteria and poison. One bite would paralyze a man, but not before he knew the agonizing sensation of being eaten alive. Large chunks of rotting meat hang from its arms and legs, as if it was already decomposing before death, just from virtue of being so hideous. Not that the creature minded of course. Loose skin gave it something to nibble on whenever it got hungry.

It growled to let them know they weren't alone. That was its favorite hunt. When its prey was blinded by fear and panic. It growled again and clicked its claws against the floor in an ominous _click-click scratch._ It almost smiled when both humans flinched around and pointed their guns into the shadows. It slithered lightning fast around their backs and lunged.

The short one was pulled up by its claws in a bone-crushing grip. It screeched when the taller one fired at it. It didn't do them any good of course, but the creature played along and dropped its prize before it slithered onto a toppled shelf. The tall one could barely keep up his line of sight, let alone fire his shotgun. It smiled when it managed to get behind him and lunge onto his back.

The two clashed against the tiled floor in a cloud of dust. Without pause the demon bared its teeth and bit into his shoulder. The tall one screamed in agony. He squirmed, but it was already too late to do anything at all.

The short one fired at its head and hit. The demon jumped over the now still man and attacked the other one. He fired once more and managed to take out the creature's eye. It screamed in fury and lunged in a four legged jump onto his chest. It bit into his shoulder like it had with the other one and left its imprint. When its mistress was done she would surely give them to it as its prize.

Regardless, the poison was already spreading slowly through their systems.

Oh yes, Mistress would be pleased.

* * *

Dean woke up in a small room. It looked like a janitor's closet. His hands were tied above his head to a pipe in the ceiling. His feet were barely touching the floor and his shoulders were on fire. He couldn't exhale properly and tried to lift his legs to alleviate some of the strain. Spending more time strung up by his hands than the average person had afforded him with an intimate knowledge of his body's endurance. He knew he'd last about an hour like this if he could keep lifting his legs to take some of the stress off his torso. If he stopped he'd be dead within five minutes.

His left shoulder screamed at him when he raised his legs. He moved his head an inch and saw the mauled wound, slowly dripping onto the floor. He was surprised there wasn't more blood. He grunted when he accidentally flinched and took thirty seconds to breathe through his nose and calm down. Forcibly exhaling through his tense diaphragm.

His flinches grew in number when he realized he didn't have a lock on Sam anymore. His wrists started grating against the ropes when he realized Sam could be dead or worse. His panic began to make every ache double and every frustrated, treacherous thought a hundred times worse.

* * *

"We have them secured," a rasping voice informed.

She turned and looked at her minion a second. "All of them?" This was no simpleminded Coratoan attack. She smiled.

"Yes," It grinned, trying to imitate its mistress, and showed its teeth. This was a smaller cousin to the one that had attacked the brothers. Smarter for some reason, than its brethren, though physically inferior.

"I want you to go get one of the children and kill it in front of the hunters."

"Would you like a psychic or a hunter's child?" it asked, on its way out the door.

She grinned. "Surprise me."

* * *

In a dark room, a dozen children were lining the floors. The air was too thick to breathe. The few with powers had already discovered how useless they were against their captors. The creature opened the door and slithered in from an even darker darkness outside. It reached out and grabbed a girl by her ankle. She was a human with no powers. That was when a psychic did the unforgivable. A boy, slightly older than the rest, used telekinesis to force the creature against the back wall. He ran forward and pulled the girl back.

The longstanding sttruggle between races didn't matter anymore. Humans and psychics didn't seem to care what they were. They only had each other and the boy was going to make sure it stayed that way.

With a sneer, the demon held out its brittle hand and forced him back against the wall with its own burst of power. Mistress was skilled in the art of witchcraft and had bestowed upon it, the wisest of its kind, the gift of magic. In this instance two powers didn't even out into nothing, rather control belonged to whoever was strong enough to take it. The creature raised him from the ground and hurled him into the wall next to it. The boy hit the wall and bounced off. He scrambled on the floor with uncoordinated movements, trying to master his mind through the blinding fear.

The creature screeched and grabbed him by the neck before pulling him out and locking the door behind it.

It pulled the boy into the room holding all the others. The ritual required a lot of bloodshed. And not just any bloodshed. Two particular things were required to make it work. Surprisingly enough neither of those two things was a book detailing how to break the first or last seal. Rather, one needed blood of the lamb and blood of the wolf. Interpreting meanings out of riddles were always tricky and Mistress had gone to great lengths to assure that the _right_ gates were opened, specifically the first and last. Anything else would be disastrous.

The creature knew exactly what was in store, being smarter than most figured. Blood of inncents would widen the existing gap between worlds, but would still need two keys to function. The blood of the lamb to open the first door and blood of the wolf to open the last. The ridiculous amounts needed to purify the ground had been applied, but such a gate needed constant lubrication.

Azul smiled and slithered across the floor with the limp boy behind him. The second he reached the hall with the others they began screaming. Almost all of them knew what was about to happen. The psychics were a new addition to the reserve sacrifices. The hunters had been there for days. The children, for weeks. It was interesting to see two sides of the same war in a room together. Watching their children bleed.

It was almost like century old grudges were forgotten. Like lines were blurred by the screams of their dying young. Azul didn't quite understand, but enjoyed the boy and took its time. He tried to fight back, but was weak from his days spent in captivity. Azul ripped into his skin. First his back. The screams were endless. Not only the hunters who had seen it happen over and over again begged for it to stop, but the psychics as well. It seemed they were all weak at the core of things.

Azul laughed when it started shredding the boy's chest. The boy was crying and keening. He was about thirteen or fourteen, but tall for his age. Strong. He would have gone far hadn't Azul decided his time was at an end.

Who knew, some of them might even escape.

It didn't much care about formalities. That was Mistress' job. Azul's twin slithered in from a crack in the ceiling. It sat and stared at all the bloodshed with uncomprehending eyes, only feeling the pull of blood and not the thrill of pain. "Come on down, brother," Azul invited and moved back.

The boy whimpered and tried to reach out to his family. The psychics knew what this beast was. They knew how it killed its prey. They told it as bedtime stories to naughty children. "Stop!" one man screamed.

"I will fucking kill you!" another roared.

When it was all over, after eating parts of the boy's flesh, he looked at them and said: "You're welcome," and left them with tears in their eyes to find his mistress.

The concreted line between hunters and psychics blurred as they watched Azul's twin eat a fourteen year old boy. Suddenly it seemed as if none of their differences mattered.

* * *

AN: I know you're all reading frantically. :*


	7. Hell Hath No Fury

Warning: This is not a death-fic. Or well...Kinda'?

* * *

Chapter 7: Hell Hath No Fury

Sam woke up, suspended from the ceiling. His chest was tight, his hands were burning from the strain and his shoulders felt like they were being ripped from their sockets. The bite mark from the creature was bleeding slowly. Slower than it should, he thought. It was deep. He felt it, but it didn't hurt like a bite usually would. It was numb around the wound and further away, deep within his muscles, it burned like acid. He almost instantly began shaking. He was suspended from lamp wires in one of the many halls of the library. Above him, the light bulb had been removed and the bare wire tied around his cuffs. He caught a glance by accident and tilted his head back to stare at the strange handcuffs. They looked like they weren't even locked. Only fused together by two flat ends. Some future design, meant to be impossible to pick, no doubt. Probably magnetized.

"You've never been cuffed before?"

Sam cracked his neck, looking up. A woman spoke with a slight French accent as she entered the room with long, rolling steps.

High heels squeezed her bunions, but the sound they made on marble was too sweet for her to care. "Or is it just because you've never been handcuffed by a woman?" The almost-French accent dripped off her tongue as if she was only sampling the language through its intonation alone.

She could smell him from across the room. The stench of his blood and sweat wasn't an easy one to miss. Neither was that of the poison surging through his veins. It left a sting, rather like ammonia she thought. Her fingers caressed each other as she walked through the room. Her back ached from standing up for days and her mind was slowly splitting. Like peeling a banana. Soon there'd be nothing left but the soft and mushy center. Ready for someone to chew. She smiled.

She hadn't slept for months. Not since she lost everything. Now she was losing her mind as well. It seemed only fitting, she thought. The last one to go in the fire-sale that had ripped through every wish she had ever granted for others. She was Jinn. Powerful enough to fulfill wishes, but only the ones made by others. Never her own. Every desire she had ever fulfilled belonged to someone else. Before she sucked their blood, that is.

He stared. _Did he flinch?_ She arched a brow and grinned.

He made a face as she came closer. She didn't really care what he thought. Soon he wouldn't be doing any thinking at all. He was beautiful. There was something mysterious about him as well. Something strong about the way he moved. Toned muscles rippled over taut skin. He was like so many other pretty boys and yet he seemed graceful.

"I have to admit, you're the prettiest boy I've seen in a while. That friend of yours isn't bad either." She ran a finger down the side of his face. He flinched back, but she wasn't bothered by it. _He would get used to it_. Hell, he would learn to love it. They all did eventually. "Do you know who I am?" She grinned.

"You're a djinn," Sam hissed at her face.

She smiled in surprise and studied him. _Smart, little boy_. "How did you come by _that_ conclusion? Most would've said demon or angel." She tilted her head at him. "Most hunters these days wouldn't know a _demon_ if it stared them in the face.

"I recognize the ink," he muttered down at her.

She smiled and made the golden tattoos on her face flare. Most of her kind had blue or green markings to show denomination. Hers meant she belonged to the elite. They were only slightly lighter than her skin and seemed to flicker like embers in the dim light. "Did you know there are different races?" She turned in her long robe and reached for a long pick, lying on a table.

"We are allegedly five races. Not counting the bastards, no one likes those." She picked it up and turned it in her hands. "One race born of fire. You can guess who they worship," She sent him a smile and discarded the weapon. "One molded of the earth. Those of air," She picked up a knife. "And Those Who Rose From the Oceans. If you are like me you prefer the water."

He thought back to the Jinn that had once captured his brother. It'd had flickering, blue tattoos. If he'd been made to guess he would have picked it as a water-born, not her with her fiery markings. She looked more like she should have fire in her veins and Lucifer on her mind, but he supposed that was the mortal, _human_ way of looking at things.

She turned the blade so it caught the light. "And if you're like my late husband you prefer the sky," She stood directly in front of him with the knife inches from his face. Her husband had been reborn as Jinn of Air when he was only seventeen. She did not meet him until his hundred and fifth year. By then she was already several thousand years older. "Creatures of air and water go so great together. You could say we were soul mates. Thunderstorms on the horizon and the rising swell." The knife nicked at his cheek and made him flinch back. She smiled. "Do you like to fly, little boy?"

Just as she leaned in, and when Sam couldn't move his head back further, he asked, "What about the fifth? That was just four."

She stopped and withdrew in thought. The conversation intrigued her. Tolerating his stalling tactics seemed like a small sacrifice. "The fifth race isn't a race at all. It's one essence. Doesn't even have a form like the rest of us." She huffed. "Think they were here first. Ha!" She turned back to him with the knife ready to cut. "If you gazed upon them your eyes would explode in their sockets." She cut off his shirt to get a better look at the wounds. Now his mind was probably spinning, connecting vague ideas that her kindred were angels or some such. Not everything that glittered was gold.

He started panting and squirming in fear.

"Relax. It'll slow the poisoning down." She jammed a small, braded staff of herbs into the largest cut.

"AHR!" Sam's stomach muscles clenched and in an attempt to move away his head tilted toward the pain. The consequence of being suspended.

When she removed the little staff his neck relaxed so his chin rested on his pecks and his stomach unclenched. "See. That wasn't so bad."

He was panting.

She brushed her palm over the wound quickly, as if removing dust. "Now I'll just go do your brother the same favor and be right back." She turned and sashayed out of the room with the robes dragging behind her, thinking he smelled better already.

Sam exhaled as deeply as he could and squeezed his eyes shut in relief. Not that he trusted her, but something told him she wasn't done with either of them yet.

* * *

She didn't return, but her minions did. Seven creatures came dragging themselves in on their forelegs. Their leader seemed more intelligent as it hobbled almost upright in front.

Azul looked at the young, suspended man with a gleeful smile. His cousin had done well, choosing those two. The creature took his handcuffs off and lowered him to the ground. Sam stared at them all with barely concealed panic. They were all teeth and claws. Even the simple task of holding him made their talon-like claws prick his skin.

They dragged him into another large room with other people chained to toppled shelves and pillars. He recognized a few of them as psychics.

"Sam!" Jason shouted and buckled in his shackles.

Sam shook his shoulders in an attempt to get loose and elicited angry snarls from the demons guiding him. Their claws digging deeper into his skin as he was dragged across a blood covered floor.

"What the hell are you doing with him!" Jason screamed.

Azul threw him to the ground and hissed. Sam's body was like an ocean of muscles, just waiting for someone to bite. Juicy and rare, Azul thought. As he raised a claw, a whoosh of air blew through the room.

Sam craned his neck to watch the intruder and froze. "Cass?"

The angel ordered Azul to stand down in Enochian and approached him, seemingly unconcerned. Finally drawing his legs under him, Sam pushed off the floor with a helping hand from the angel. "What are you doing here?" He looked around for signs of the woman. "We haven't found the book yet."

"You weren't supposed to, Sam." Castiel's grip on his arm settled somewhat. Not quite painful, but far from lenient.

"Cass?" Sam jerked his arm back and flinched when the creatures spat and hissed at the angel while they backed away. "What's going on?"

Castiel sighed. "It's difficult to explain."

The way he tilted his head, the look in his eyes, suddenly made a shiver race through the young hunter. It wasn't Castiel. He jerked in the stronghold with little effect. "Who are you?"

The angel smiled and continued to hold him effortlessly in place. "I am an angel of the Lord."

* * *

It was curious how one mind could hold so many memories. The angel had never been afraid of human suffering so when it first peeked into Sam Winchester's mind and saw his God, it couldn't stop. It delved deeper and deeper until it found the memories of the Cage so far down Sam Winchester's mine-shaft mind that they were surpassed by none.

Here he saw Satan.

* * *

Time passed, though not much. It was still daylight out, the same daylight. Sam was shaking from the after effects of re-living Hell. He couldn't think or focus properly, still reeling from the trauma.

"It was strange seeing him again." The angel said as he dragged an uncooperative Sam out of the grotesque puddle of blood. It filled almost the entire conference hall.

The angel wasn't looking at him, and as he was dragged across the floor to sit in front of the other restrained humans Sam became more and more confused as to how he had ever thought it was Castiel at all. "Castiel." The angel said in explanation and proved his suspicions correct. "It was like he didn't even see me."

The creatures screeched at him in anger over having their food taken from them. Sam eyed them and tried to work his wrists out of the cuffs, but the grip on his shoulder prevented movement. He flinched at the contact.

The angel inside Jimmy – the angel he had no idea who was – released him and sauntered back to the middle of the room. "This must be confusing." It looked up where broken skylight windows had been blown out long ago. The sun didn't reach the floor, but put bright squares on the walls. "I can tell you the book was a non-issue. I told my brother what he needed to send you here and I showed him what he wanted to see."

"You're not Cass." Sam was resolutely not looking at the half-eaten children's carcasses on the fringe of the room. "So who are you?" It wasn't the blood that scared him. It was the evacuated and shredded bowls along with everything that had been in them prior to death. Feces, food and things the children had been forced to eat while in captivity.

The angel turned and looked at him carefully. He was interrupted from answering when someone started cussing up a storm as they too were dragged into the room. "Dean?"

The oldest Winchester stopped squirming and took in his brother's exposed, bleeding chest and shell shocked apperance before he turned to Castiel. "Cass, what the hell!"

The angel barely glanced at him. "We've been working on this for years. Watching you develop into your intended potential." The way he spoke seemed to include the entirety of the human race and not just Sam. He looked at him again. "Did you never wonder why you had different powers at different stages of your life?"

Sam frowned and looked to his brother for silent support, but for once Dean didn't seem to know what to think of the situation.

"Powers come from the soul, Mr. Winchester." The angel held up a hand towards the light and tried to count the blood vessels in his fingers. "Not the environment." He sighed as if he was only talking to pass the time. "Azazel couldn't have given you powers any more than I could have. We could only have brought out what was already there."

And suddenly he was reminded of Ruby of all things. _You didn't need the feather to fly, Dumbo!_

"…But," his voice vanished completely before he even thought out the rest of the sentence. He looked at Dean for some kind of answer. Anything. But his brother was looking at him the same way and the realization spread that they had no idea what was coming. That help wasn't coming.

"I intend to lock you in your own body and watch as my brother takes out his rage on what's left of this world." He turned fully to Sam again. "Did you know there was a nuclear reaction in one of the Baltic reactors a hundred and twenty years ago?"

Sam was panting. This was about Lucifer. Of _course_ this was about Lucifer. It _had_ been all along and he'd ignored it. Forgotten it somehow. He started shaking.

"It was designed to refine plutonium with the intention of creating nuclear weapons. Only… it never quite fulfilled its purpose."

He paced around the blood and marveled how the coagulated lumps mixed with the almost coagulated lumps and the freshly spilled blood from the recently dead boy into a kind of glue. Humans, he thought, humans were interesting. Even the one he was possessing now. He had taken it after the Winchester's Familiar vacated it for reasons unknown.

"The consequences nearly extinguished most of the natural wildlife in the North Sea. Lapland was destroyed. The rest of Norway, along with Denmark and Sweden was evacuated." He looked up again. "We believe this was when the first psychic boom occurred." He looked back at Sam, gaging his reaction. The human seemed confused. "There have always been psychics, but this created ripples somehow and altered brain chemistry in a way even we could not have foreseen."

Heels clicked against the floor as the Jinn strode back into the room. "Even us, lowly monsters were affected by it." She smiled at Dean in passing the way she had at Sam. "Imagine how powerful humans were at their peak. There was little to no violence in established, developed societies while the underdeveloped countries were a pool of rage and need. We flocked to the once great nations that fell during the wars they made." Her smile grew a fraction. "The psychics or monsters didn't do this to America. Humans did." She still fiddled with the ice pick from earlier. From Dean's glare he recognized her so Sam guessed she'd paid him her intended visit.

Sam looked at his brother properly for the first time since he was brought in and noticed his bloody wounds and generally pain filled posture. But he didn't look sick or weakening.

"We need your blood." the angel continued. "Not much, but enough to create an adequate reaction."

"What reaction?" someone behind Sam asked.

The angel just stared at him. Neither brother needed an answer to the question. Their imagination easily filled out the blanks and left them terrified. Sam, terrified of being sucked back into a torture chamber he only had nightmarish memories of that still reduced him to a terrified three-year-old some nights. Dean, terrified at the thought of losing his brother, and joining him only seconds later.

Nonchalantly the angel turned and strode to the side, standing across from the Jinn. "Start with the oldest-"

"No!" Sam lunged as well as he could for his restraints, but was stomped back down when one of the slithery, black things sat itself atop him.

Dean was dragged, kicking and twisting, to the center of the frighteningly large pool. By the time he reached the center he was covered almost head to toe in blood. He was released and almost made it to his feet when one of the creatures swiped out a clawed appendage and ripped through his upper-right thigh. A terrible scream echoed through the room and was joined by an equally terrified scream from Sam and outrage from several hostages. Hunters and psychics alike.

_No! Dean! Oh god no! Nononono!_ He bucked against his keeper, but it didn't do much good. So hurt beyond understanding that he couldn't even draw enough air to scream, Dean's face, mouth wide open and eyes wide shut, pointed to the floor and his body convulsed as it tried to comprehend the injury just inflicted upon it. It looked like a shark bite.

"We needed the correct conglomeration of power." the angel explained as it watched Sam's brother very quickly bleed out. "Power of mind and power of matter." It watched as fresh blood once again mixed with the mass already there. Red, almost black, from the vein. "Not just any would do."

The Jinn snorted. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

The angel glanced at her and for a second Sam almost saw Castiel again. "That is an incorrect definition."

She laughed as Dean continued to bleed out. He was keening now. Moaning and keening as blood gushed from the wound. Sam could hardly see for tears, but felt pretty sure he had broken something in his attempt at escape.

Dean sobbed in pain, but no one cared. No one seemed to break in half the way Sam felt he did. "_No_." he was crying freely when he was dragged out next to his brother. About six feet from him. He tried to crawl closer but was pulled back by the ankle by one of the creatures. "_No_!" His voice was shrill. More so than usual which probably meant he had screamed as well, though he couldn't remember. He couldn't hear. Dean was dying. Bleeding out. He had slipped into shock seconds ago with a tinny exhale before his body sagged.

Then Sam's back split open and something very, very vital snapped inside. Pain blazed through what was left. He felt horribly misshapen, but couldn't turn his head to look. Something had been ripped off, he realized with panic. A leg? Both? Blood was spilling out so fast it felt warm against his cooling body.

People were screaming.

Why had they captured so many if they didn't need them all, he wondered. Perhaps this was an act of desperation. Perhaps this was a shot in the dark?

"Pl-" He stopped when he realized he didn't know what to beg for. When he realized Dean was dead now. Not breathing. He had gone still and pale, almost blue. His leg was seeping as the last of him slid out onto the floor.

Sam was fading too. His vision was the first thing he was aware of losing. Prior he had lost sense of touch with the utter shock to his nervous system of having a limb ripped off. Adrenalin and cortisol had been released from the adrenal glands to dull him somewhat. His mind and ability to process information was gone. As was his sense of smell, though it returned briefly only to remind him how blood in massive quantities, and various stages of decay, smelled.

His ability to reason where he was heading had also been blocked by his failing body. Protecting him from the torture chamber waiting below. He was dull and numb by the time his hearing went, and by then he only managed to hear the last words of a hundred year old conversation.

"…_let's hope this works_."


End file.
